CHAPTER VII.

"OLD CHRISTMAS."

The "new departure" which Caldecott made in the summer of 1874 will be seen clearly marked in the next few pages, where, with the permission of the publishers, we have reproduced some characteristic drawings from _Old Christmas_.

"There was issued in 1876 by the Messrs. Macmillan" (writes Mr. William Clough, an old and intimate friend of Caldecott) "a book with illustrations that forcibly drew attention to the advent of a new exponent of the pictorial art. These pictures were of so entirely new a nature, and gave such a meaning and emphasis to the text, as to stir even callous bosoms by the graceful and pure creations of the artist's genius. Washington Irving's _Old Christmas_ was made alive for us by a new interpreter, who brought grace of drawing with a dainty inventive genius to the delineation of English life in the last century."

It is not generally known that the drawings for _Old Christmas_, one hundred and twelve in number, were all made in 1874; and there is a marked alteration in style during the progress of this book, such as, for example, between the drawing of "The Village Choir" (commenced in March 1874), and the portrait of "Master Simon," placed opposite to each other on pages 96 and 97 of the first edition of _Old Christmas_.

The humour is more robust, but never in after-work was more delightful, than in his rendering of the typical stage coachman. Until these illustrations came it had been said that Washington Irving's coachman stood out as a unique and matchless description of a character that has passed away.

"In the course of a December tour in Yorkshire," writes Washington Irving, "I rode for a long distance on one of the public coaches on the day preceding Christmas."

Three schoolboys were amongst his fellow-passengers. "They were under the particular guardianship of the coachman to whom, whenever an opportunity presented, they addressed a host of questions, and pronounced him one of the best fellows in the world. Indeed I could not but notice the more than ordinary air of bustle and importance of the coachman, who wore his hat a little on one side and had a large bunch of Christmas green stuck in the button-hole of his coat.

"Wherever an English stage coachman may be seen he cannot be mistaken for one of any other craft or mystery. He has commonly a broad full face, curiously mottled with red, as if the blood had been forced by hard feeding into every vessel of the skin; he is swelled into jolly dimensions by frequent potations of malt liquors, and his bulk is still further increased by a multiplicity of coats in which he is buried like a cauliflower, the upper one reaching to his heels. He wears a broad-brimmed low-crowned hat; a huge roll of coloured handkerchief about his neck, knowingly knotted and tucked in at the bosom, and has in summer-time a large bouquet of flowers in his button-hole, the present most probably of some enamoured country lass. His waistcoat is commonly of some bright colour, striped; and his small clothes extend far below the knees to meet a pair of jockey-boots which reach about halfway up his legs.

"All this costume is maintained with much precision; he has a pride in having his clothes of excellent materials; and notwithstanding the seeming grossness of his appearance, there is still discernible that neatness and propriety of person which is almost inherent in an Englishman. He enjoys great consequence and consideration along the road; has frequent conferences with the village housewives, who look upon him as a man of great trust and dependence; and he seems to have a good understanding with every bright-eyed lass. The moment he arrives he throws down the reins with something of an air, and abandons the cattle to the care of the ostler; his duty being merely to drive from one stage to another. When off the box his hands are thrust in the pockets of his greatcoat, and he rolls about the inn yard with an air of the most absolute lordliness. Here he is generally surrounded by an admiring throng of ostlers, stable-boys, shoe-blacks, and those nameless hangers-on that infest inns and taverns and run errands. Every ragamuffin that has a coat to his back thrusts his hands in his pockets, rolls in his gait, talks slang, and is an embryo 'coachey.'"

Surely it has seldom happened in the history of illustration that an author should be so very closely followed--if not overtaken--by his illustrator. No literary touch seemed to be wanting from the author to convey a picture of English life and character passed away; but Caldecott's coachman helps to elucidate the text; and whilst it carried to many a reader of _Old Christmas_ in the New World a living portrait of a past age, it revealed also the presence of a new illustrator.

Here was a reproachful lesson. The art of illustration--an art untaught in England and unconsidered by too many--was shown in all its strength and usefulness by a comparatively new hand.

Of the numerous illustrations drawn by Caldecott in 1874 for _Old Christmas_, we may select as examples the young Oxonian leading out one of his maiden aunts at a dance on Christmas Eve; and "the fair Julia" in the intervals of dancing listening with apparent indifference to a song from her admirer; amusing herself the while by plucking to pieces a choice bouquet of hothouse flowers.

The style and treatment of the drawing, on the opposite page, differs from anything previously done by Caldecott, and would hardly have been recognised as his work; the handling is less firm, and colour and quality have been more considered in deference to what was considered the public taste in such matters. But in a few pages he emancipates himself again, and gives us some brilliant character sketches. In the last example from _Old Christmas_ he is in his element. Nothing could be more characteristic, or in touch with the period illustrated, than the picture of Frank Bracebridge, Master Simon, and the author of _Old Christmas_, walking about the grounds of the family mansion "escorted by a number of gentleman-like dogs, from the frisking spaniel to the steady old staghound. The dogs were all obedient to a dog-whistle which hung to Master Simon's button-hole, and in the midst of the gambols would glance an eye occasionally upon a small switch he carried in his hand."[7] Thus the minute observation of the writer is closely followed by the illustrator, who here from his own habit of close observation of the ways of animals, was enabled to give additional completeness to the picture; and the effect was greatly heightened by a wise determination on the part of Mr. Cooper the engraver, that the illustrations should be "so mingled with the text that both united should form one picture." This book was engraved at leisure, and not published until the end of 1875, by Messrs. Macmillan & Co., bearing date 1876.

It is interesting to note that _Old Christmas_ was offered to, and declined by, one of the leading publishers in London; principally on the ground that the illustrations were considered "inartistic, flippant and vulgar, and unworthy of the author of _Old Christmas_"! It was not until 1876 that the world discovered a new genius.

During the progress of the drawings for _Old Christmas_ in 1874, Caldecott went with the writer to Brittany to make sketches for a new book; but the publication was postponed until after a more extended tour in 1878.

These summer wanderings of Caldecott in Brittany were prolific of work; his pencil and notebook were never at rest, as the pages of _Breton Folk_ testify (see Chapter xi.). The drawings, both in 1874 and in 1878, mark a strong artistic advance upon similar work in the Harz Mountains. His feeling for the sentiment and beauty of landscape, especially the open land,--generally absent from the sketches in the Harz Mountains,--is noticeable here. The statuesque grace of the younger women, the picturesqueness of costume, operations of husbandry, outdoor _fêtes_ and the like, and the open air effect of nearly every group of figures seen in these summer journeys--all came as delightful material for his pencil.

Caldecott's studies with M. Dalou, the sculptor, in 1874, and the great proficiency he had already obtained in modelling in clay, enabled him to make several successful groups from his Brittany subjects.

The bright-eyed stolid child in sabots at the roadside (one of the first of the quaint little figures that attracted his attention in Brittany) stands on the writer's table in concrete presentment in clay; the model is not much larger than the sketch--the front, the profile, and the back view, each forming a separate and faithful study from life.

The young mother and child in the cathedral at Guingamp (reproduced opposite) was another successful effort in modelling, but Caldecott was not satisfied with it excepting as a rough sketch--"a recollection in clay."

It is interesting here to note the handling of the artist in his favourite material, French clay. The model stands but six inches high, but it was intended to have reproduced it larger. Another sketch in the round was of "a pig of Brittany," reproduced on page 194.

"Save up," he writes about this time to a friend in Manchester, "and be an art patron; you will soon be able to buy some interesting terra cottas by R. C.!"

This was a heavy year, for many illustrations were produced not mentioned in these pages; and in October he was busy on the wax bas-relief of a "Brittany horse fair," afterwards cast in metal and exhibited in the Royal Academy in 1876 (see page 137).

On the 19th of November and following days Caldecott was "working at Dalou's on a cat crouching for a spring." He had a skeleton of a cat, a dead cat, and a live cat to work from. This model in clay was finished on the 8th December, 1874.

Christmas Eve was spent "in the caverns of the British Museum making a drawing, and measuring skeleton of a white stork." This was a most elaborate and careful record of measurements. On the 28th of December he was "engaged on brown paper cartoon of storks at Armstrong's," and on the 30th is the entry,--"at British Museum; had storks out of cases to examine insertion of wing feathers."

Thus, all through the year 1874 Caldecott, working without much recognition excepting from a few intimates, got through an immense amount of work; not forgetting his friends the children, to whom he sent many Christmas greetings with letters and coloured sketches. The drawing on the opposite page accompanied a kindly letter to a child of six years.

"I thank you," he says, "very much for your grand sheet of drawings, which I think are very nice indeed. I hope you will go on trying and learning to draw. There are many beautiful things waiting to be drawn. Animals and flowers oh! such a many--and a few people."

The last sketch in 1874--a postscript to a private letter--tells its own story.